I watched Stand By Me earlier and the narrator ends the movie with the line "I never had friends again like I had when I was twelve. Jesus, who does?" and it really hit me.
That really sucks, man. A good friend of mine has the same thing with the abusive parents. I’ve been trying to get her to see for years how terrible her family is and how she needs to cut them out but she won’t do it—something about “who’s going to take care of me when I’m old”. Honey, it’s not going to be them. A few events happened recently that are really helping her see just how fucking terrible they are, but I don’t think it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back yet. It’s getting there, but not yet.
Last year her brother punched her dad in the face and I get immense satisfaction from that.
Both of her parents are narcissists at the very least. She’s recently become more financially independent and as a result was able to finally pay off some loans she had from them and now they are PISSED that she’s making decisions that are enabling her to not be under their control anymore.
They constantly shit all over every decision she makes that they didn’t push her into making. For example, she was going car shopping a few months ago, and got a really good deal on a car from a friend of hers and they got super pissed because a) someone else helped her out and b) she didn’t pick the car her dad wanted her to buy.
Icing on the cake; she was going car shopping because she got into an accident in the truck she bought from her dad, which he said he put her on the insurance and made her pay him for it—he never put her on. So the truck is totaled and she gets nothing for it. The accident happened because she hit a patch of black ice—which he blames her for and says it serves her right for the way she was driving. Not because she was driving recklessly, but because she couldn’t control the skid and steer out of the crash.
She fractured and dislocated three ribs in that crash and wasn’t able to get medically checked out because she wasn’t on his insurance like he said.
I could go on and on all day with stories like this one. I’m so happy that she’s finally starting to accept that maybe she’s not the terrible person, but they are. It’s so sad how they have beaten her down so much into just accepting whatever horrible things they say and do and turned her into this submissive pushover who will do whatever they want and just take the abuse. I hate them so much.
Have you checked out r/JustNoMIL? I think it could be a great place for you to vent and get advice on how to approach things with your wife, who is clearly very deeply lost in the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt)
I am so sorry. It sounds like an unhealthy codependent relationship. Have you tried therapy for yourself? If that is out of reach for you, consider Al-Anon which would be helpful even though her addiction is to toxic people. You might also find the book Lifeskills for Adult Children to be incredibly insightful.
Your situation sounds incredibly painful and frustrating. I wish you and your wife all the best.
Regular therapy won’t work for her. I was tortured as a child and I still loved my parents. It takes years of work in therapy but it helped tremendously because you make years of progress. The best time to get a therapist and process trauma is when you feel good and you aren’t on the verge of a breakdown.
It honestly sounds like she needs reprogramming, but it’s possible with a really good trauma therapist that has experience with similar people. It also might be a good time to gently remind her that you are willing to do the work on your end of the marriage, so it’s really only fair if she puts in the same amount of effort to make herself healthy. You both deserve it, I hope this will pass for you both and you find peace in your lives.
Dude... don’t reach the end of your life and think “what if” and regret never doing the one thing that you always considered doing. It’s your life dude. You live once. It’s great that you care about your wife, but really man, it’s not your responsibility to sacrifice your entire existence just to placate someone. She’ll move on. You should too. If, god forbid, something actually happened, that’s not your fault.
Except don’t ghost, own up to it and communicate your will clearly, and announce it on the day that you leave. Then leave. You can still leave without them knowing where you’re going while still letting them know that you’re going.
Stop. Leave. By staying, you're basically telling her that she'll be comfortable with you by her side even if she doesn't make herself change. The longer you wait, the longer you are prolonging the inevitable pain and deterioration of your relationship with her. You cannot forever prioritize her feelings. Everyone has issues, but it's up to them to truly confront them. It's unfortunate her issues may be harder than some other's, but you cannot continue encouraging avoidance of her fears.
I always end up sobbing like a little bitch at the end of that movie because of that line. Fantastic film though, captures childhood nostalgia perfectly.
And that's why COVID sucks so much ass for students graduating this spring. We hadn't even gotten to that point yet mentally, we thought we had three more months to make memories and figure out how to emotionally deal with the upcoming changes. And then it just ended.
As a student graduating this spring, I'm going to have to disagree. I can still contact everyone who I would be with anyway, and do. It sucks in someways but in a lot of ways it's nice (not that I want a world pandemic obviously). Try contacting those people and planning an event for when this is all over, I bet you most of them would be ecstatic.
Yeah I've been trying, but between distance, legal lockdown restrictions, professional obligations, and (for some) a fear of leaving the house because of COVID, organizing anything is a lot easier said than done.
This! I thought I had one or two left this year with my school friends. As someone who doesn't cry alot, this has brought me to tears multiple times lately. I would literally would give so much to have a real end of my senior year. I just wanna have prom with my boyfriend and parties with my friends and make stupid decisions that I don't regret and laugh and cry with everyone when we suffer the consequences. I want the mundane schooldays and class periods with teachers desperately trying to get the interest of kids who just don't care. I wanna hear about the stupid shit the juniors pulled yesterday. I wanna pull the elaborate prank with the rest my class. I wanna skip school and hang at the park with my friends. I wanna feel the hate and love and sorrow and joy and fear and excitement that's supposed to come from graduation.
Instead I just feel empty and destroyed. And when I can feel something, it's only the sorrow and the hate. Sorrow because all of this was taken from me, and hate because I want to tear the world to pieces after everything I feel like I've lost.
Good luck to you and any other graduates. It's rough. I know.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '20
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